


it starts like this

by essenceofheroism



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Pre-Relationship, a little bit of matt, a small sliver of dan renee and allison, i'm not sure what genre this is, it's a little of everything, neil x andrew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 10:12:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7098514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/essenceofheroism/pseuds/essenceofheroism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>anonymous prompt on tumblr:<br/>"I have some andriel prompts! Can you do how and when the other foxes started betting on andrew and neil??"</p><p>or the one in which kevin, nicky and aaron see it coming. bets ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it starts like this

It starts on the roof. Everything with them always seemed to start on the roof. It was the night of the first game of the season and the Foxes had just won. They’d been dysfunctional, like this horrendous miracle of a team always was, but it was better because Neil was there. Neil was strange and he was an amateur, but he was new and gave everyone something to pay attention to rather than ripping each other’s heads off at any given opportunity. Neil was oddly becoming the glue of the team and it was terrible, but whatever. It made the Foxes win, and that made Waymack scream at them less so there was that. So, it was the night they’d played their first game of the season with Neil Josten as their striker, Josten who the media loved, Josten who charmed Miranda Brown, the talk show hostess with his snappy comebacks and smugly unanswered questions. Josten, in whom a certain Minyard twin seemed to take a special interest. Currently, the Minyard twin in question was leading Neil on to the roof at about 1:23 am in the morning. Kevin had been out and about (for reasons no one wanted to know) the dorms when he’d seen Neil disappear quietly behind Andrew in the staircase that led to the roof. 

If it was anyone else, it wouldn’t have been worth the second glance, but this was Kevin Day and he didn’t know Andrew at all when compared to the entirety of the messy constellation that was this Minyard brother, but he knew the most (at least he’d thought until he’d seen Neil with him) about him. He knew that the roof was Andrew’s safe haven, sacred and personal; it was a roofless temple for Andrew’s bare thoughts and though Kevin knew about the legend of what Andrew Minyard conjured up on the roof of the Fox Tower, he’d never been allowed to accompany him to witness such a phenomenon. Andrew had never offered and Kevin had never bothered asking. Neil, however, was allowed to watch Andrew under the blanket of the stars, illuminated like a secret. He was allowed to watch Andrew’s chilly breath leave a cloud of air behind and disappear between them. 

Andrew had said, “So, you going to run now, Josten?” Neil had looked terrified and broken, their win making it harder for him to leave, making it more difficult for him to leave this behind. 

“I don’t know.”

“You’re pathetic,” Andrew had said, because he was angry and maybe a little afraid. 

“I know,” came the response, and Neil’s afraid too. Andrew had closed his eyes because it didn’t matter, Neil didn’t matter, except he kind of did and that was a nightmare itself. 

Kevin had known at 1:25 am that Neil was trouble, maybe not for him, but definitely for Andrew, and he wanted to hurt him for it. But Andrew had let Neil in, so he was not going to object. Kevin would never agree to witnessing this moment or this specific realization; he’d never bet with Nicky or Allison, but he’d always know, and that was a bet he was willing to place with himself. 

 

Nicky asked the question he asked every new Fox to Neil Josten as he slid into the chair beside him. 

“So, Andrew or Aaron?”  
Neil looked up from his English paper, pencil shoved behind his ear and hair disheveled. He looked confused and caught off guard, and that made him look good in a way that kind of hurt Nicky physically, but he wouldn’t say it because he was in no mood to die at the hands of Andrew Minyard today. 

“What?”  
“Which Minyard twin are you a bigger fan of? I ask every new disaster that joins us this question. I need to know where you stand on this, our friendship basically depends on it.”

Neil was still confused. “Yeah, but they’re both your cousins? And they’re twins?”  
Nicky sighed dramatically, taking the pencil from behind Neil’s ear.  
“That’s like saying Riko and Kevin are brothers and they’re the same thing. Spoiler alert: they’re not. Just answer the stupid question. Like, who’d you rather say ’if you had a twin, I’d still choose you’ to?”

“It’s a stupid question, why would I answer it?”  
Nicky looked disgusted. 

“God, Josten, are you always this cryptic? No wonder the monster takes such interest in solving everything about you. You basically play yourself.”

“I mean, Andrew’s not that monstrous,” Neil remarked, and he’s looking at his paper now, scribbling again, but there’s a slight lilt to his voice that Nicky can’t recognize. Neil doesn’t particularly like Andrew yet, but he doesn’t hate him either, and trust isn’t a concept for Neil Josten but he thinks he’d give the most watered down, diluted version of it to Andrew. Andrew wasn’t a friend yet, but he was safety and he was someone to lean on, someone to compare scars and dirty pasts with (the closest anyone had been to being like him, understand him) and somehow, that was enough. Stay, Andrew had said, and though his hands quivered and his heart shook, Neil thought he might, if not only for the frail shadow of a promise made by a strange, strange boy. 

Neil doesn’t bug him further, but he does raise one eyebrow in question, that Neil just answers with a slight shrug before he takes his pencil back from Nicky and Nicky thinks there’s something like peace in Neil’s eyes and a slight upward tug to his lips. 

Aaron Minyard couldn’t care less about Neil Josten. He didn’t care much about Andrew either, but he owed a lot to his brother, even if he’d never admit it. Owing someone was a weight on your shoulders that you couldn’t ever really get rid of; it’s a lingering reminder that you exist because of someone else, and that begrudging and incessant truth is all that Aaron knew of his brother. It was something though, and it was enough somehow. Aaron hadn’t grown up with Andrew but he’d seen Andrew sink into the corners of Palmetto State University and attach himself to the orange walls to grow and deplete in silence. Andrew was a creature of habit, and Aaron had observed him closely enough to notice the subtle shift to his shoulder whenever Neil got slammed into a wall during a game or the tick to his jaw and the painfully tight clench of his fists when the 6 foot backliner from the Griffins’ team practically dragged Neil to the plexiglass walls and quite literally slammed his skull in the pure rage that only obsessive athleticism and excess testosterone could bring. 

Andrew didn’t move from his position at the goalpost but he did ask Nicky to “Check if Josten’s still fucking breathing” in a gruff voice that was so obviously out of character that Aaron almost laughed. Aaron was texting Katelyn in the waiting room of the hospital when a full-sleeved back shirt (one of Andrew’s? Or Neil’s?) and some warm socks were thrown at this face and his annoyed expression was ignored as Andrew said, “Give this to Josten if he’s still alive” and left. At 2:43 am, Andrew had come back to their dorm smelling like anesthesia and anti-septic, but Aaron didn’t say anything. 

Nicky started the public betting on a Friday in the girls’ dorm with a bold statement that went something like, “So, 50 bucks that the Beast has finally found his Beauty.” Matt snorted, but shook his head, Dan smiling in encouragement and a “hopefully.” Kevin kept a straight face and retorted, “No.” and Nicky rolled his eyes at him. Renee smiled sweetly and said, “Let’s hope so.” Allison finished tying her ponytail and then, “Hell yeah.” Aaron felt something strange for his brother, something like apathy, something like relief. He said, “Not Neil Josten,” and continued to text Katelyn.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for the prompt, whoever it was. feel free to leave prompts/scream about this with me on my tumblr at www.ohliverfelicity.tumblr.com 
> 
> i got lovely feedback on my first fic with this pairing, so i tried again. i hope you like it, anon.  
> comments are welcome and appreciated.


End file.
